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Drawing a line in Sandy

You all met Sandy. But would you want to take her on vacation with you?

Sandy was a Category 2 when my wife and I met her in the Bahamas -- sort of a damage a trois.

It all began when we booked a trip to the Bahamas resort of Breezes back in July. Four nights. All-inclusive. All food and alcohol paid for in the cost of the trip. The occasion would be our 25th wedding anniversary -- and the first time either one of us had been in an airplane since our honeymoon.

Sandy was an uninvited, and unexpected, guest.

Yes, we were aware that the end of October is still technically hurricane season. But really, what are the odds of a hurricane forming near the very end of the season? And besides, your 25th anniversary only happens once.

We had visions -- my wife of a golden tan, I of sitting at a barstool in a pool. Were we asking for too much? Maybe choosing a resort called Breezes at the tail end of hurricane season was just too much for the fates to ignore.

For three months, we scrimped and saved enough money to go. Harry and Gabe at Garavanian Travel helped us make our plans. Mother Nature and Sandy helped unravel them.

You know that movie National Lampoon's Vacation, the one with Chevy Chase? Yeah, well, the Griswolds have got nothing on the Phelpses.

The day before we departed, I chanced a look at weather.com, just to see what the weather might be like in the Bahamas. It was then I saw what was brewing in the tropics, and it wasn't Kalik beer.

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After a relaxing ride in, courtesy of Michael from Harris Limousines, we arrived on Wednesday, the same day Sandy was introducing herself to Jamaica, just a few hundred miles south of Nassau. When we got to the Bahamas, the winds were already gusting. They wouldn't stop by the time we left on Sunday.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After spending an hour or so by the pool on Wednesday before throwing in the completely dry and unused towel, we awoke Thursday to heavy rains and wind, though Sandy hadn't quite arrived in full force. People just sat around looking at each other, wondering what the heck to do, until we all eventually just migrated to the bar and the buffet, the last resorts at a resort that is all about sun and fun.

By Thursday night, Sandy was all in, and there were rumors among the guests of the hotel evacuating everyone. The bar closed that night at 8, likely because hotel management didn't want to have to evacuate a bunch of drunken guests.

Friday brought more of the same. People milling around, looking longingly at the pools and the beach, which were a mess and unusable thanks to the storm. No power. No wi-fi. A bus ride into Nassau's shopping district was revealing. The devastation was apparent all around us. Neighborhoods flooded. Ships wrecked. Buildings damaged and boarded up. We went back to the resort and, with nothing else to do, resumed drinking and eating.

Saturday dawned with a spectacular sight -- the sun. Ahh, we thought, this is the day we hit the pools and the beach and work on those tans. Not so much. One look out the window, and it was evident that Sandy was turning into the thing that wouldn't leave.

She had decimated the beach and made the pools unswimmable. Breezes crews were out there all day Friday, and they were still there Saturday morning, joined on the beach by four bulldozers that were bringing in new sand and reshaping the beach.

OK, we figured, the beach is out, but the pools will open soon.

After breakfast, we donned our bathing suits for the first time since our arrival three days before. We joined the throngs of folks milling around in their bathing suits, watching ominously as the crews cleaned the pools. There was a vibe in the air, like if those pools didn't reopen soon, there's gonna be trouble. We were kind of waiting for a scene from a Who concert -- circa Cincinnati, 1979 -- and I was thinking about that Seinfeld episode where there's a fire and George is pushing aside elderly women and children to get out of the building, and wondering if there were going to be 100 George Costanzas trampling everybody else to get a pool chair.

The pools opened about 1 p.m. (all of them, that is, except the one at the outdoor bar), and there was an orderly rush for chairs. And even though gusts of up to 50 mph still tore through the pool area, blowing leaves and paper plates and empty beer cups around, nobody minded. This, after all, was why they were there.

Sunday was departure day. At this point, do I really need to tell you that the sun was shining brilliantly, wind gusts were down to about 30 mph, and the pool bar was now open? Oh, and that the beach was reopened? We are the Phelpses, remember.

How many people can say they vacationed in the Bahamas and never so much as dipped a toe in the beautiful green ocean?

The only thing sandy about our stay in the Bahamas was the hurricane.

And that's not all. During our entire stay -- about 96 hours -- we not only had to contend with Sandy and her pre- and aftereffects, but we also had to wonder if we'd be able to fly home Sunday because the news was that Sandy was going to leave the devastated tropics in her wake and set her sights on the entire East Coast. It never left our mind the entire trip. Would we get home? And if we did, would we want to be home?

Of course, this was where our luck changed. We did get home. Though most airports in New York and New Jersey had closed, and though some airlines canceled flights into and out of Logan Airport, Delta delivered us home, and only about a half-hour late.

The first person to greet us -- even before the limo driver (Leighton, this time) -- was Sandy.

Just what we needed after four days of heavy wind and rain. More heavy wind and rain.

The trip wasn't an entire loss, not by a long shot. We were still away from home and work, and the people at Breezes are very nice and accommodating. The food and drink were good. They even comped two nights for us, and offered us two free nights for our next trip there. And we met several nice couples from around the USA, including Lisa and Corey from Minnesota.

And I got to meet Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester, who was traveling on the same Nassau-to-Atlanta flight with his wife and kid.

It was certainly a 25th anniversary we'll never forget. And we'll probably go back.

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